“The oil crunch is when global supply fails to meet demand and starts to drop and arguably we fear starts to drop so fast that you almost call it a collapse”

Chris Skrebowski, former editor of Petroleum Review

“All the calculations tell us that’s going to be no later than 2014 (OPEC using all the spare capacity it is sitting on and all that spare capacity is working) and it could be as early as 2013. It could be even earlier”

Demand surge in China….

Demand surge in India….

“…if that [surge in demand from China and India] continues

then it brings the crisis right forward…”

IEA’s Birol: “The time is running out, the oil is today our lifeline, it is everywhere in the economy, if the prices go up or if there’s a supply disruption this will be definitely very bad news”

ABC TV: “How urgent is this?”

Birol: “I think it would have been better if the governments had started to work on it at least 10 years ago”